by Mo O'Hara
Frankie was thrashing around so much inside the torch that it flipped right out of my hands and rolled underneath the cabinet.
‘When Mark and I did our work experience here at half-term it was easy to gain access and turn it into the chic and modern lair you see today. There was loads of great stuff down here. Old exhibits . . . animatronics from the moving dinosaurs. It’s all come in very useful.’
‘So Mark is—’ I started to say, when I was interrupted by a much more impressively evil, ‘Mwahhaaa haaa haaa haaa haaa!’
‘Here,’ Pradeep finished for me.
‘You losers were so easy to trick,’ Mark said, stepping out of the shadows. He was holding a bubbling test tube of something green and toxic-looking. ‘All I had to do was give Mum the flyer for this museum sleepover and you were both begging her to go.’
‘Then we just had to lure you to our trap,’ Sanj added.
A screeching ‘Miaooooooww’ came from the other side of the room.
‘The cat mummy!’ I cried. ‘Sanj, Mark, look out!’
‘Idiot,’ Mark said, and scooped the cat up from the floor. He unwrapped what I could see now was a lot of toilet paper until it revealed his evil sidekick vampire kitten.
‘Fang?’ I mumbled.
Mark smiled. He scratched Fang behind her ears. ‘Who’s an evil mummy kitty then?’ he cooed.
Suddenly Frankie launched himself out from under the cabinet in true ninja style.
‘Frankie!’ Pradeep yelled, as a flash of orange smashed Fang out of Mark’s arms and on to the floor.
I shot Pradeep a look that said, ‘He must have unscrewed the torch lid again while he was under the cabinet. Maybe he’s trying to cause a distraction so we can escape.’
Frankie blindsided the kitten with his tail, but Fang flipped backwards and swiped at him with her needle-sharp claws. Frankie leaped up for another attempt at a face-slap, but Fang was too quick for him. She pinned him to the floor and licked her lips.
‘Playtime’s over, kitty!’ Sanj shouted. ‘You can’t eat—’
‘Zombify her, Frankie,’ I interrupted. ‘Do it now!’
Frankie stared hard at the kitten, his green eyes glowing brighter than ever, but Fang clamped her eyes shut lightning-fast and leaped away. As Mark scooped up his vampire kitten and put her in his Evil Scientist white-coat pocket, I hurried over and grabbed Frankie.
‘When can I let her eat the fish?’ Mark rolled his fingers into a fist.
‘Soon,’ Sanj said. ‘But for now, we need the fish for our plan. Come on, keep up with the programme! And –’ he turned to Pradeep – ‘unbelievably, for this task we need you too.’
I rooted around under the cabinet and managed to find the torch and slip Frankie back inside. Sanj handed me a bottle of water to top it up before I screwed on the lid.
‘We can’t have the fish uncomfortable now, can we?’ he said, smirking.
‘Why would I help you?’ Pradeep demanded.
‘Because we’re going to keep you trapped down here until you do,’ Sanj replied, folding his arms and sitting down in an expensive-looking swivel chair next to the cabinet.
There was a whirring, crunching sound, and then the arms of the big Anubis statue behind Pradeep shot forward and trapped him in a bear hug.
‘Arrggghh!’ cried Pradeep.
‘I’ve been dying to use that trap ever since we built it,’ Sanj said, clapping his hands. ‘That was part of an old moving dinosaur exhibit that we found down here. I think it’s much better like this than wasted on some velociraptor, don’t you think?’
I tried to pull the arms away from Pradeep, but Mark grabbed me and dragged me away. ‘You and the fish gotta do whatever we want . . . or we might just forget to let your little friend outta here.’ He grinned.
‘OK,’ I said, looking back at Pradeep. ‘We’ll help you. What do you need us to do?’
Sanj pushed a button and a holographic 3D image appeared in front of his laptop, projected out into the room.
‘Wow, good tech set-up for an ancient lair,’ Pradeep said, and stopped wriggling.
‘I know, I can’t bear old things actually,’ Sanj said, brushing the dust off his hands before he touched his computer keyboard again.
A map of the tomb above us appeared on the screen.
‘How do you know what it looks like inside?’ I asked.
‘The museum archaeologists X-rayed it in preparation for the unsealing, which is scheduled for tomorrow.’ Sanj smiled. ‘That’s why we had to set our plan in motion tonight. I “borrowed” the map from the archaeologists’ database. They really should improve their security.’
‘All you have to do is take the fish, break into the tomb, bypass all the booby traps and open the sarcophagus to reveal the mummy,’ Mark went on. ‘Got it?’
‘Um, booby traps?’ I said.
‘After that, you will await further instructions,’ Sanj continued.
‘How can I await instructions when I’m in the tomb?’ I asked.
‘Because your moron friend will be in your ear the whole time,’ Mark said, shoving an earpiece into my ear. ‘TESTING!’ he yelled into the tiny microphone in his hand. I jumped back and rubbed my ear while he walked over and pinned the microphone to Pradeep’s pyjamas.
Frankie was thrashing about so much in his torch that I had to hang on to it with both hands so I didn’t drop him again.
‘This is the prototype for my latest invention,’ Sanj said proudly, holding up what looked suspiciously like a pair of ordinary glasses. ‘I managed to sell the design to a computer company, which is how I managed to get enough money to kit out this lair. They are Anti-Hypno-Power Vision Super Glasses, or Hyp-Vis Specs as I prefer to call them. They’re what all Evil Computer Geniuses and Evil Scientists will be wearing next year.’
Mark and Sanj put on their glasses and Sanj held a pair out for me.
‘Why do I need to wear them? I don’t think I’m the one who needs protection against being hypnotized!’ I looked down at Frankie, who nodded.
‘If you wear them, then Pradeep will be able to see whatever you see and hear you when you speak,’ Sanj replied. He slipped the Hyp-Vis Specs on to my face, and the image of what I was looking at came up on Sanj’s laptop screen on the cabinet in front of Pradeep.
‘Why do I need to see everything that Tom sees?’ Pradeep asked.
‘We need your mind, Pradeep, but frankly, Tom will be better at getting through the booby traps,’ Sanj answered.
‘And Frankie?’ Pradeep and I said at the same time.
‘Just get on with it!’ Mark snapped. ‘Take the fish and hurry up! There’s a door over there that leads right into the museum.’
‘Um, I knew that,’ I said, and turned and headed for the door with the big ‘Emergency Exit’ sign over it.
Pradeep nodded to me. ‘Good luck, Tom.’
Frankie’s eyes were glowing bright as we climbed the stairs and walked towards the tomb of the Cat of Kings.
‘OK, Pradeep,’ I said as I stared up at the tomb doors. ‘See anything useful?’ I turned my head to the left and right and up and down to give him a good look.
‘Could you stop moving around so much, Tom?’ Pradeep mumbled. ‘You’re making me feel sick.’
‘Oh, sorry!’ I said. I’d forgotten that Pradeep gets travel sick from pretty much every type of motion, except (weirdly) in boats.
‘Wait! What’s that?’ Pradeep said. ‘Over the door. There’s writing in hieroglyphics.’
‘It says, “Beware those who enter here with an evil fart”. . .’ Pradeep and I both cracked up.
‘I did not force you to do our evil bidding just so you could make Egyptian fart jokes!’ Sanj shouted.
Then Pradeep interrupted. ‘Wait. Oh, I see, sorry. It says, “Beware those who enter here with an evil heart”. It says heart. Some hieroglyphic characters are about the meaning and some are about the sound. They’re easy to mix up.’
Frankie’s eyes dimmed from his
‘high alert’ bright green colour. I think he liked the fart joke too, which got me thinking – do goldfish fart?
I asked Frankie.
‘Stop it!’ Sanj interrupted again. ‘What does it say after that?’
I stepped closer to the message so Pradeep could read it.
‘“Beware the Curse of the Cat of Kings” . . . blah, blah, blah . . . “the tomb is guarded by the emerald-eyed protector for whom the afterlife holds no fear”,’ Pradeep read. ‘Ah, here we are. “Those who enter proud and true, the warm south sea will let them through”.’
‘I have no idea what that means,’ I said, looking around.
‘It’s a riddle,’ said Pradeep.
‘Those who enter proud and true, the warm south sea will let them through,’ I repeated.
‘South!’ Pradeep suddenly shouted. ‘True south!’
‘Not so loud,’ I said, rubbing my ear.
‘The entrance to the tomb is true south. We need a compass to work out which way that is.’
‘Hang on, I can make one!’ I cried. ‘I saw it on a Grizzly Cook survival show.’ I took the paperclip from the worksheet in my pyjama pocket and twisted a piece off it. Then I rubbed the magnet from my lucky-horseshoe key ring along the metal in one direction. I unscrewed the lid of Frankie’s torch and asked him to swim to the bottom and stay still. Then I put the metal paper clip on the water.
‘It’s working!’ I said proudly as the paperclip spun to a stop. ‘One end should be pointing due north and the other due south. Even though I don’t know which end is which, we’ve still got a one in two chance of getting it right.’
‘Moron, did you just do something . . . smart?’ Mark asked over the earpiece.
‘Cool!’ Pradeep said, sounding impressed.
I picked a direction and walked around to what looked like the back of the tomb. There was a very thin stone door in the middle. ‘Right, now we’ve got to get in,’ I said.
‘I think I’ve figured it out. It says, “Walk proud and true”, so stand up tall, Tom,’ Pradeep said.
Posture is not a big thing for me but I stretched up tall as I could.
‘Then it says, “The warm south sea will let them through”,’ Pradeep went on.
With that, Frankie swam to the top of the torch, jumped out, landed on my head and spat water at the door. A low rumble echoed through the hall as the stone doors scraped aside.
‘Wow,’ breathed Pradeep. ‘You did it! I wish I was there with you.’
Stale air hit me in the face. It smelt like thousand-year-old gym socks in there.
‘You really don’t, Pradeep,’ I muttered, trying not to gag. ‘You really don’t.’
‘You’re in. Now hurry up and find that sarcophagus!’ said Sanj’s voice in my ear.
Frankie’s eyes glowed brighter as we stepped into the cold of the tomb. Inside I saw three small doors: one on the left, one on the right and one straight ahead. Each door had one, two or three lines carved into it.
It was very dark, even though the main door remained open. I pulled my pyjama sleeves down and shivered. I would like to say it was just the cold, but I think it was more of a freaked-out shiver. I looked around the cramped hall for any hieroglyphic writing, but there was nothing on the walls. Then I screwed the lid back on Frankie’s torch and pointed him up at the ceiling.
‘Hang on – there’s something up here. I’ll tilt my head right back so you can read it,’ I said.
‘“The first opens the second and the second opens the third. But the first will open to no one until the final note is heard”,’ translated Pradeep. ‘I think the riddle relates to a musical scale!’
‘That’s easy!’ I said. I closed my eyes and started to sing into the torch like it was a microphone. “Laaa, laaa, laaa, ooooh, baby, oooh!”
‘STOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPP!’ Pradeep, Mark and Sanj screamed in my ear.
I opened my eyes. Rows of sharp wooden spikes were sticking out from the walls all around me.
‘Your singing is literally lethal,’ Sanj snapped. I could hear Fang in the background purring evilly.
‘The room must be booby trapped!’ Pradeep gasped. ‘If you sing a wrong note, the spikes come out. The right notes must open the doors.’
I touched my finger to the wooden spike nearest me and it crumbled into dust. ‘Phew,’ I sighed. ‘At least the spikes are too ancient to actually get me.’
‘You are wasting our time,’ Mark shouted down the microphone.
‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘I can whistle way better than I can sing. I’ll try that.’ Slowly and carefully, I started to whistle a scale. As I hit the first note the door with two lines carved into it creaked open.
‘It’s working, Tom! Keep going,’ Pradeep said.
As I whistled the second note, the door with three lines slid to one side. Only one door to go! I puckered my lips and whistled through the third, fourth and fifth notes. Nothing. I tried the sixth and seventh notes. Zip.
Finally I made my loudest whistle yet for the eighth and final note of the scale. Frankie was peeking out from behind his fins, so the room had gone very dark. Then I saw it – the final door, the one with just one line carved into it, was opening! I shone Frankie’s torch towards the movement and . . . ‘Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugs!’ I shrieked in a voice so high that I’m pretty sure every dog within a two-mile radius heard me. It was not one of my proudest moments.
I threw myself back against the wall, turning most of the remaining spikes to dust, as thousands of beetles scuttled past my feet.
‘What’s going on?’ Sanj shouted. ‘Look down so we can see.’
I shook my head so fast it must have made Pradeep feel queasy. ‘There are bugs. Hundreds of them! I HATE bugs!’
‘Tom, try to look down at them,’ Pradeep said calmly.
I tilted my head down and shone Frankie’s torchlight at the moving floor, just as a breakaway team started crawling up my trainers.
‘They’re scarab beetles,’ Pradeep said. ‘They’re not dangerous.’
I lifted my head to look at the doorway that the bugs were pouring from. There seemed to be a steep stone staircase just through the door.
‘I think that’s the door you have to go through, Tom,’ Pradeep whispered.
‘Why does it have to be the bug door?’ I whimpered. ‘There are two perfectly good bug-free doors I could go through.’
‘Well,’ said Pradeep, ‘I know it’s this door because there’s a big arrow painted on the floor just inside the doorway with hieroglyphics that say, “Sarcophagus this way”.’
I tried to force myself to step over the bugs, but it felt as if my feet were frozen to the spot.
‘I can’t get past them, Frankie,’ I whispered. Frankie shook his head and shot me a look that was a combination of ‘I can’t believe you are this scared of a few bugs’ and ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it’.
With a shaking hand I unscrewed the torch lid. Frankie poked out his head, nodded and then flung himself on to the bug-covered floor.
Frankie swooshed and swished his way across the floor like a little orange bug duster, flicking beetles out of the way so I had a clear path to walk, although most of the scarab beetles had scuttled out through the tomb entrance anyway.
‘Thanks, Frankie,’ I whispered as he jumped back into the torch and I made my way to the staircase. ‘Can you read these, Pradeep?’ I asked, shining the torch at some hieroglyphics on the steps.
‘It says,’ Pradeep said, ‘“AND THEY’RE”, on the first step, “CLIMBING” on the second, “A STAIRWAY”, on the third and “TO HEAVEN”, or more accurately “THE AFTERLIFE”, on the top step.’
‘What? Like that really long song that Dad always plays in the car?’ I asked.
‘Maybe it’s an old Egyptian song,’ Pradeep replied.
As I neared the top step I whispered, ‘Pradeep, you don’t think the hieroglyphics mean that when you get to the top of this staircase, you face certain death or anything?’
> ‘I think it’s just leading you to the sarcophagus.’ Pradeep answered. ‘Don’t worry.’
When I got to the room at the top, Frankie banged on the lid of the torch. I unscrewed the cover and he poked out his head, ready to take on whatever was waiting for us. The room was dark, with dead-looking once-flaming torches set in carved grooves in the walls and a stone bench in the centre.
‘There’s no sarcophagus!’ Sanj shouted. ‘It should be in this chamber!’
‘Maybe an actual grave robber got here first,’ I heard Mark say. Fang yowled in the background.
I walked to the centre of the room. I could just about stand up straight without my head touching the ceiling. Suddenly the torches on the walls burst into flames.
‘That’s weird,’ Pradeep said. ‘Those torches are thousands of years old. There must be some kind of sensor that registers when someone walks in. Whatever you do, don’t touch anything, Tom. We don’t know what might happen.’
‘I promise I won’t touch a thing,’ I said. I sat down on the bench and crossed my arms. Then I got that funny feeling like when you’re at the dentist’s and the chair starts to move. I leaped up, but it was too late. The stone bench slowly sank down until it was completely flat in the floor. Then a scraping noise came from the stairway and a door rolled down from the ceiling, trapping me in the room.
‘What was that?’ Mark’s voice yelled in my ear.
‘Um, Pradeep . . .’ I started to say, looking round the room in case anything else bad started happening. ‘You know how I said I wouldn’t touch anything. Well, that doesn’t include sitting on stuff, does it?’
‘What did you do, Tom?’ he asked.
‘Nothing!’ I gulped.
Then, with a grinding noise, the ceiling started to move. The room was getting shorter, with me in it!
‘Or maybe something . . .’ I added. ‘I think I’ve set off some sort of booby trap! The ceiling is coming down and I’m going to be flattened! What do I do?’
